Remembering Walter Cronkite

Before she opened her eponymous salon in Palm Beach, Deborah Koepper worked in Washington, D.C.

In the last four years of the Reagan administration, she served as hair and makeup artist for Nancy Reagan and others in the White House.
During that time, she ran into legendary journalist Walter Cronkite, who died Friday evening. She recalls bumping into Cronkite a number of times at Kennedy Center events.

At one Kennedy Center Honors program, Koepper spoke with comedian Bob Hope and Mr. Cronkite in the green room. The longtime CBS anchorman, known as an avid sailor and the most trusted man in America, joked that Mr. Hope was stealing his lines, Koepper said. “He was so funny on his own,” she said. “Everybody thought he was so stoic and serious, but he was really funny.”

Walter Cronkite had something in common with Ronald Reagan, Koepper said.

“He, like Mr. Reagan, gave you a sense of security with his honesty and character (so you felt) that everything would be alright. He was made of all the good stuff that this country was built on.